A new complex designed to concentrate all criminal business for the
Dublin city area in one serviced location - known as the Criminal Courts
of Justice - commenced operation in November 2009. The complex,
extending to 25,000 sq. meters, will accommodate the District Court and
Circuit Court criminal sittings and the Central Criminal Court, Special
Criminal Court and Court of Criminal Appeal. It will also house the
first Combined Court Office - a new single multi-jurisdictional court
office model, providing support for the courts aforementioned.

The Criminal Courts of Justice, construction of which was completed
ahead of schedule, was built at a cost of €120 million under a 28-year
Public private partnership arrangement, and represents the single
largest capital investment in the administration of justice in Ireland
since the foundation of the State.

The complex’s features include 22 courtrooms containing state-of-the-art
courtroom technology including digital recording, video-conferencing and
electronic evidence presentation facilities, dedicated assembly and
dining areas for jurors, segregated facilities for victims, prosecution
witnesses and relatives, facilities for the relaying through video-link
of evidence of vulnerable witnesses, and secure custody suites and
consultation rooms. A special children’s evidence suite has been
specially designed following consultation with child welfare experts,
allowing remote, safe facilities for children giving evidence via video-conferencing.
There are extensive dedicated facilities for legal practitioners and the
media.

Extension of case progression regime in Circuit Court

Amendments to the procedural rules of
the Circuit Court – the intermediate level first instance jurisdiction
in Ireland – were approved in late 2009 to deploy a case management
regime (known as “case progression”) to various categories of civil
litigation in that court. A similar regime had been deployed
successfully for family law litigation during 2008.

The purpose of case progression is stated in the rules as being to
ensure that proceedings are prepared for trial in a manner which is just,
expeditious and likely to minimise the costs of the proceedings and that
the time and other resources of the court are employed optimally. The
rules assign to the senior professional legal officer of the Circuit
Court – the county registrar - the functions of overseeing preparation
of cases for trial in the Circuit Court, generally monitoring the
progress of the case pre-trial, and making final arrangements for the
trial.

This is done by means of case progression hearings. Each legal
representative of a party attending the case progression hearing is
required to ensure that(s)he is sufficiently familiar with the
proceedings and has authority from the party (s)he represents to deal
with any matters likely to arise at the hearing. The county registrar
may, where it is considered necessary or desirable, direct that the
parties themselves attend the hearing in addition to their
representatives.

The county registrar is required to establish what steps remain to be
taken to prepare the case for trial and fix a timetable for the
completion of its preparation for trial or adopt any timetable proposed
by the parties if satisfied that it is reasonable. The county registrar
may give or make a range of pre-trial directions and orders at the
hearing, and is empowered to award or disallow costs of the case
progression hearing and refer to the judge cases of non-compliance with
directions.

The new regime will also facilitate recourse by the parties to
Alternative Dispute Resolution (mediation, conciliation, arbitration or
other dispute resolution process)to settle or determine the proceedings,
or issues in the proceedings. A case may be adjourned either on
application by the parties or on the Court’s own initiative for this
purpose, in which event time-limits for the taking of steps in the
litigation may be suspended.

The volume of pre-trial motions in cases in the Circuit Court is
considerable, and it is hoped that the new regime will relieve Circuit
Court judges of a large pre-trial applications caseload, freeing them up
for trial work.